Polish Painter Who Learned To “Photograph Dreams” – His Works Will Give You Nightmares

Let us take you on a journey through the curious mind of a Polish artist, Zdzisław Beksiński, who made a name for himself with his dystopian surrealism paintings, filled with post-apocalyptic imagery and nightmarish creatures.

The artist is no longer with us to better explain the vast roster of over 300 of his works, but he used to say: “I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams.” And that is exactly what popped into my head when I first saw his paintings. Even, though, they utilize recognizable everyday objects, those are paired and arranged in ways only the dream world could sustain in a single picture.

These unseen combinations gave birth to mind-bending scenarios, which do build an anxious feeling while looking at them. The artwork is beautifully abstract, yet it does have the power to invoke real world references, which makes it even creepier. The artist’s explanation? Well, it may lie in these cryptic words: “What matters is what appears in your soul, not what your eyes see and what you can name.”